History is compilation of data and materials gathered throughout time and analyzed to form some consensus of what happened in the past. A common way people learn about history is through reading and memorizing textbooks and historical literature. This can be an effective way of understanding the past but it is important to not overlook other ways of understanding the past such as artwork. Although artwork may not always tell the person about specific knowledge, it may sometimes give more…
summary of “Historicism, History, and the Figurative Imagination” an essay by Hayden White in “Tropics of Discourse Essays in Cultural Criticism”. In this essay, White begins by addressing the difficulties historians may have in reporting history because of the inherent bias or lack of expertise the historian brings in a particular field of study in order to distinguish the significance of the events. A good historian, as stated by White, consistently reminds us that history is always an…
draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages”. In other words, history itself is highly textual and is always subject to critical interpretation. This essay will focus on historiographic metafiction in relation to ‘First lives club: Pretend Blood by Margaret Atwood and ‘The Birds’ by Daphne du Maurier and how…
n this part we are going to present the main theories that we are using in order to define our project’s topic. The first theory that we are going to use is about re-enactment, which is going to help us understand the idea of what it means to re-enact. Historical re-enactment is based on “bodily experience” meaning that the people who choose to re-enact a specific part of the past have to dress, act and live like it used to be in that specific period, however some of them might be a part of the…
the narrative current. This highlights the inability of the powerless to become their own “spokesmen” within the narrative of traditional history. Instead their depiction is shaped and controlled by the powerful “politicians and press”. However, it is also the powerful Commissioner Harris, builder of the waterworks thus symbolic author of Toronto’s official history, who finally helps Patrick don the “skin of a lion”. This is highlighted in Harris’s allusion to the epic of Gilgamesh where Patrick…
Interpretation of the past is an immense task left mostly to historians, who themselves have differing views and methods among each other. In From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods, Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier provide a history of the methodical and theoretical changes that historians have embraced and rejected. Many of these transformations were inspired by other disciplines as well as a reflection of social and political climates. Howell and Prevenier explain the…
of objectivity and its connection to history. In addition to this, it is essential to recognize the importance of how power can influence the way society views the past. With this recognition, the historian can make the connection of how power controls knowledge, which writes the history of society. This connection of power and history leads to the reason of why historians argue objectivity. With the knowledge of these issues and their connections to history, the historian will comprehend why…
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots” (Garvey). If we truly grasp this quote from Marcus Garvey and portray it to class, we can understand just how important the course Western Civilization I really is. What I mean is that the pivotal points of history that is taught in Western Civilization I helps to guide the people of today to a brighter future. Using these key historical events that is gone over in the course, we can use this…
specific subsections. Not so with Guns, Germs, and Steel, a big history with one specific goal, to answer the question of why some societies dominated others in modern history. Wasting no time in stating his focus, Jared Diamond declares that “This book attempts to provide a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years.”(Diamond, 9) Arguing against any lingering theories of racist genetic inequality, Diamond purposes that history played out along the course it did…
When History Is About Feelings In Frank Delaney’s Ireland, he takes the reader through the vivid tale of Irish history from a variety of perspectives. He applies emotion in his writing to criticize how history is taught today. Most scholars would agree with Ronan O’Mara’s professor, T. Barlett Ryle, when he argues, “History is not about feelings. History is about knowledge” (Delaney 342). However, it is taught from an objective point of view that causes it to be devalued, misunderstood, and…